Railway on shopping strip
This is from a wee album of ‘works photos’ taken by the intrepid A.E. (Hef) Graham. In the album there is a typed pasted-in label, ‘6.5.63 Pouring of concrete on the new tunnel in the construction of the new underground railway’. This looks to be the roof of the tunnel though the apparent width from this view seems a wee tad narrow for trains top go through. And, from a technical railway point of view, this is not really a tunnel. It has not been excavated or bored through underground. It’s what’s known in ‘underground’ railways as cut and cover. If you go shopping at Centreplace, this is beneath your feet as you go in the Victoria Street entrance.
Of note in this photo is the very large sign on the building by the palms at Victoria Street, “Pollock & Milne”. The flier we showed last week was for the very early days of P & M. The complex grew and then later in the 1990s diminished to a point that it was closed in the late 90s. It was a renowned landmark business that served Hamilton for over sixty years.
